Paula lives in central Vienna, loves to ride her bike and truly enjoys publishing her photos on this blog. So this is Paula's Diary. A blog, rather than facebook.

Tuesday, 25 January 2011

Shooting Your Own Legs and Other Impossibilities

Taking photos of your own legs without a mirror turns out to be a challenging act:

... bias out of control.

Darling I shrunk the legs!Immediate gainweight and shrinkage of height, due to the angle of the camera.

Oh and the boots: they are made in Austria. The leg is felt and the front is embroidered and crystallized (registered trademark). The inside is a red cotton with white flower-print. I call these boots my "Russian Boots", because that's exactly how I imagine Russian Boots, a bit Anna Karenina, a bit Dr.Schiwago and by any means outré.

In case you wonder: the tights are Fogal, so to say the swiss Wolford.

Hmmm. The best outcome?Due to open aperture lots of blur

What I am trying to show you is the nice matching of the tights and the knitted cardi. The texture, the colours - it works!Those tights have been in my drawer for a few years and wear them once in a while, usually I combine them with a white shirt and a mocca-brown skirt. Not today!

Must not forget: I switched to walking instead of cycling due to dense muscles in the back. 1hr in each direction. Walking enables me to wear SKIRTS!

Another almost impossible act besides shooting your legs is turning by 180° while standing in skis on a steep hill.

That's why people attend courses. You need help and advice.

If you google "Youtube" and "Spitzkehre", you will find funny videos. I promised the group I would not put any footage from our course online.

The course takes place in small groups, we are 6 + 1 or 2 guides. 6 already includes me and Mr Paula, the other 4 participants are all trés trés chouettes et aimables (I have been visiting Une femme d'un certain age lately, as you can tell!). We 6 immediately developed a profond group-spirit and the more time we spent together, the more fun we had. So lucky! We could tell from what we saw at the other tables at breakfast and dinner - you can't take it for granted that you end up in a cosy group.

Yay, Mr Paula got it:

si elegante ...

The trees on this hill and most of the surrounding mountains are gone because Paula got wild a few years ago and hit Styria really badly: Paula 2008.Styria is one of the 9 Austrian provinces, Mr. Schwarzenegger was born in Styria. His nickname is the "Steirische Eiche", Styrian Oak. Maybe the foresters should have planted more oaks instead of spruces, Oaks could have resisted Paula in 2008 better than those flat rooting spruces.

This is the place, where we will continue to improve our skills:

No, no, no, this is not our hotel!Our building is not visible, it is in my back.

The bell tower resembles a Norvegian bell tower and the clock-face is oval. It was only after we returned back home when I found out, this region is called "Styrian Siberia", not because of the tons of snow but because of crazy low temps!

Oh, did you notice: cardi, temps ... the tights/cardi-combination triggers a casual style in wording, too. Walking is a good alternative to many things. Especially when it comes with skirts. But take care: 1 hours walking does NOT equal 100gr milk chocoloate.

PS: I finally found the correct translation for "Skitouren gehen", it's not "ski touring" but "skimountaineering"!